Erykah Badu Riffs On Women and Music

Many thanks to Sasha Frere-Jones for posting what has to be one of the funniest satirical riffs about women in music that I’ve ever heard. Erykah Badu is one of music’s most inspiring musical figures for me, in part, because she remains oblivious and impervious to musical fads and the pressure for seasoned artists to reinvent themselves. There will never be “Honey” the Hot Chip Redux. With the proliferation of bands who throw together singles and blow up based on a few myspace demos, it’s refreshing to see such a painstaking craftswomen meticulously mold something that still aspires to the much maligned and increasingly elusive category of “art”. You can pretty much read her satirical statements in this video as line for line refutations of all the criticism directed at her. I like that Badu can be powerful, sexy, difficult and sophisticated without doing, as she puts it, “ho” shit. Not to mention, as evidenced by this video, she has the big picture, in all its grotesque proportions, on point.